1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus for cutting an electric wire by intermittently feeding the wire for each product wire length and sequentially carrying out a desired terminal processing of the cut wires such as a stripping of covered wires and a crimp-style connection of a terminal metal member at a terminal portion of the wires, according to a plurality of processing data including attribute information own to each manufacturing wire, thereby to sequentially manufacture wires finished with a desired processing, and relates, more particularly, to an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus for enabling an operator to easily understand a progress status of reset-up of items along with the proceeding of this work thereby to substantially improve the efficiency of the reset-up work.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been known an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus for cutting an electric wire by intermittently feeding the wire for each product wire length and sequentially carrying out a desired terminal processing of the cut wires such as a stripping of covered wires and a crimp-style connection of a terminal metal member at a terminal portion of the wires, according to a plurality of processing data including attribute information own to each manufacturing wire, thereby to sequentially manufacture wires finished with a desired processing, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-69722.
The automatic cutting and crimping apparatus disclosed in the above-described publication is planned to smoothly carry out an reset-up work such as a reset-up of electric wires, terminal metal members or crimping dies, that are generated in sequentially and continuously manufacturing products of lots of mutually different specifications in wire diameters, metal members, etc., and makes a display of only the contents necessary for a reset-up of items on the display at the time of the reset-up.
According to the above-described conventional automatic cutting and crimping apparatus, the operator can look at the contents of the display and thus properly understand the contents necessary for reset-up such as change of set conditions, materials to be changed, so as to carry out the reset-up promptly and accurately regardless of the level of skillfulness of the operator.
However, according to the above-described prior-art automatic cutting and crimping apparatus, the apparatus makes a display of only the contents necessary for an reset-up on the display, and the apparatus does not make any display of time information such as the time required for the operator to carry out the reset-up and the time taken since the reset-up work has started. Therefore, there has been a problem to be solved that it is difficult for the operator to understand the progress status of the reset-up work along with the proceeding of this work.
Thus, there has been desired among parties concerned a development of a novel technique which enables the operator to easily understand the progress status at any time along with the proceeding of the reset-up work.
The present invention has been made in the light of the above-described situation, and it is an object of the invention to provide an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus which calculates a cumulative standard time required for the operator to carry out a reset-up work when a reset-up work to be carried out has arisen associated with a reset-up in processing data between old and new lots, sequentially subtracts a lapse time since the starting of a reset-up work from the calculated cumulative standard time to obtain a cumulative standard remaining time, and makes a count-down display of this cumulative standard remaining time, thereby to enable the operator to easily understand the progress status of the reset-up work at any time along with the proceeding of this work, and thus makes it possible to substantially improve the efficiency of the reset-up work.
In order to achieve the above object, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus for cutting an electric wire by intermittently feeding the wire for each product wire length and sequentially carrying out a desired terminal processing of the cut wire such as a stripping of covered wires and crimp-type connection of a terminal metal member at a terminal portion of the wire, according to a plurality of processing data including attribute information own to each lot of a manufacturing unit, thereby to sequentially manufacture wires finished with a desired processing, the automatic cutting and crimping apparatus comprising: processing data memory means for storing the plurality of processing data; standard time memory means for storing standard time required for an operator to carry out reset-up works, for each of reset-up items such as exchanges of the electric wire, a terminal metal member and a crimping die; processing data comparing means for comparing processing data between old and new lots by referring to the plurality of processing data stored in the processing data memory means; item extracting means for extracting a reset-up item associated with an updating of the processing data between old and new lots, based on a result of a comparison by the processing data comparing means; standard cumulative time calculating means for accumulating a standard time corresponding to a reset-up item extracted by the item extracting means, by referring to a standard time for each reset-up item stored in the standard time memory means; cumulative standard remaining time counting means for counting a cumulative standard remaining time by sequentially subtracting a lapse time since a starting of a reset-up work from the cumulative standard time calculated by the standard cumulative time calculating means; and display means for making a count-down display of the cumulative standard remaining time counted by the cumulative standard remaining time counting means.
According to this aspect, at first, the processing data comparing means compares processing data between the old and new lots by referring to a plurality of processing data stored in the processing data memory means. Based on a result of this comparison, the item extracting means extracts a reset-up item associated with an updating of the processing data between the old and new lots. Next, the standard cumulative time calculating means accumulates a standard time corresponding to a reset-up item extracted by the item extracting means, by referring to a standard time for each reset-up item stored in the standard time memory means. Then, the cumulative standard remaining time counting means calculates a cumulative standard remaining time by sequentially subtracting a lapse time since the starting of a reset-up work from the calculated cumulative standard. Then, the display means makes a count-down display of a cumulative standard remaining time counted by the cumulative standard remaining time counting means.
As explained above, according to this aspect of the invention, when a reset-up work has been generated associated with a reset-up in processing data between the old and new lots, a cumulative standard time required for the operator to carry out a reset-up work is calculated, and a lapse time since the starting of a reset-up work is subtracted from the calculated cumulative standard time to obtain a cumulative standard remaining time, and the count-down of this cumulative standard remaining time is displayed. Therefore, the operator can easily understand the progress status of the reset-up work at any time along with the proceeding of this work. As a result, it is possible to improve the efficiency of the reset-up work.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus of the above first aspect, wherein the display means makes the count-down display of the cumulative standard remaining time, accompanied by a display of reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means.
According to this aspect, the display means makes the count-down display of the cumulative standard remaining time, accompanied by a display of reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means. Therefore, the operator can easily understand the progress status of the reset-up work at any time along with the proceeding of this work. Further, as the items to be changed over are indicated to the operator, it is possible to improve substantially the efficiency of the reset-up work.
According to a third aspect of the invention, there is provided an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus of the above second aspect, wherein reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means are displayed in a list in a design status.
According to this aspect, reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means are displayed in a list in a design status. Therefore, as the whole items to be changed over are displayed to the operator, it is possible to improve remarkably the efficiency of the reset-up work.
According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus of the above second aspect, the apparatus further including: a plurality of reset-up completion detecting means for detecting work completion of each of reset-up items such as exchanges of an electric wire, a terminal metal member and a crimping die, wherein when a work completion has been detected by at least one reset-up completion detecting means out of the plurality of reset-up completion detecting means corresponding to reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means, a reset-up item of which work completion has been detected is erased from display contents on the display means.
According to this aspect, when a work completion has been detected by at least one reset-up completion detecting means out of the plurality of reset-up completion detecting means corresponding to reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means, a reset-up item of which work completion has been detected is erased from display contents on the display means. Therefore, the operator can easily understand the progress status of the reset-up work at any time along with the proceeding of this work. Further, as items of which reset-up have not yet been completed among the items to be changed over are indicated to the operator, it is possible to improve more remarkably the efficiency of the reset-up work.
According to a fifth aspect of the invention, there is provided an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus of the above second aspect, the apparatus further including: a plurality of reset-up completion detecting means for detecting work completion of each of reset-up items such as exchanges of an electric wire, a terminal metal member and a crimping die, wherein when work completions have been detected by all the reset-up completion detecting means corresponding to reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means, all the display contents relating to the reset-up on the display means are erased.
According to this aspect, when work completions have been detected by all the reset-up completion detecting means corresponding to reset-up items extracted by the item extracting means, all the display contents relating to the reset-up on the display means are erased. Therefore, when all the reset-up works has been completed, it becomes possible to make a display of necessary information of processing data associated with a lot after the reset-up, in place of display contents of the reset-up that is no more necessary. As a result, it is possible to provide an extremely practical information providing status.
According to a sixth aspect of the invention, there is provided an automatic cutting and crimping apparatus of the above fourth or fifth aspect, wherein the plurality of reset-up completion detecting means detect the work completions of reset-up items respectively, by utilizing a fact that the positions of members in which respective detecting means are provided during a processing period are different from the positions of the members during a reset-up period.
According to this aspect, it is possible to properly detect a completion of the reset-up work.
The nature, principle and utility of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.